New owner reveals opening date for old Dundee favourite

By Joe Birchenall on
Sunday 2 August 2015

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The new owner of the former Deep Sea Restaurant hopes to reopen the Dundee favourite in October.

With over 40 years experience in the fish market, Darren and his family are no strangers to the industry, owning both G & A Spink Fish Merchants and the highly rated St Andrews chippie The Tailend Restaurant and Fish Bar.

While the name of the new restaurant has still to be decided, plans are in place to give the restaurant's interior a revamp, with Darren Spink telling STV he is working on a "complete overhaul" of the premises.

As for the food, Darren says the menu will remain quite similar to that of his predecessor, although he does have a few twists in store, starting with the installation of a delicatessen.

The Deep Sea Restaurant was hailed as a Dundee institution in some quarters after it announced it would be closing last August, following 77 years of business.

News came shortly afterwards that the eatery would be taken over by the Spink family.

He said: "We’re hoping to get some of the frying range installed mid to late September, so we’d hope to open the takeaway in October and the restaurant will follow.

"We’re in the final stages of putting the planning application together. We’re hoping to get it approved shortly and then we can crack on with the development."

(The Tailend Restaurant and Fish Bar)

via STV

A plate of fish and chips from the St Andrews restaurant.

Change of tack-le

"We’re planning a complete overhaul of the whole site," Darren said. "Taking down walls and beams and all that sort of stuff.

"We’re also looking to build flats above the site and we’ll also have a deli upstairs.

"So we’ll be a fish and chips meets deli ready-made meals place with deli products that you can pick up and go as well as fish and chips.

"The plan was always to get to summer out of the way in St Andrews, that way we could move on without having the pressure of being too busy in one place."

Topend Tailend

At their St Andrews business, in addition to plates of fish and chips, they serves up gourmet meals ranging from lobster bisque and smoked haddock arancini to seafood Thai curry.

All the fish used there is locally sourced in Scotland, which has won The Tailend Restaurant and Fish Bar plenty of fans, a reputation Darren wants to bring to their new Dundee business.

"We will be keeping a pretty similar menu and similar branding [to the St Andrews restaurant]," Darren said.

"We might tweak things slightly as it is for a different market and in Dundee things are a bit more city or business orientated. The places are fairly similar with all the students but St Andrews is maybe a bit more touristy.

"We might tweak things a little but it will be a similar menu, branding - all that sort thing."

Darren has also told STV that he hopes to feature an international selection of beer, specifically designed to work with seafood.

(The Tailend Restaurant and Fish Bar)

via STV

The restaurant will be able to seat between 40 and 50 people when construction is finished.

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